I never cease to be amazed and disheartened by the antics of the religious worldwide. A day does not pass without some outrage committed by some religion, or some group of religious people, somewhere. One of the sources for this checklist of religious horrors is Ophelia Benson’s “Latest News” over at butterfliesandwheels.org. I thought I was going to do something similar here on choiceindying.com, but it never really took off. It needs constant attention, and at my age attention span is a bit meagre. But just as a for instance, let’s take the latest offerings from Ophelia’s website:
Bail denied for Sanal Edamaruku
He could be picked up at any time, and his lawyers are advising him to leave the country for a bit. Spread the word, donate if you can.
Pakistan: 4 women who “sang at wedding” killed
4 women and 2 men were sentenced to death by a jirga for singing and dancing at a wedding. The men managed to flee but the women were all killed.
No review for woman charged with “feticide” in suicide attempt
Despite amicus briefs from eighty respected experts, the state of Indiana will do its best to send Shuai to prison. Potential sentence: 45 to 65 years.
Westboro Baptist to picket Seattle shooting victim’s funeral
St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Seattle has been told that members of the anti-gay church plan to be present at the funeral of Gloria Koch Leonidas on Thursday.
And this goes on, day after day, sometimes hour after hour, one religious horror piled on to the next …., and the next, and the next! It’s this that gets my goat every time someone complains about the new atheism, as though the new atheism is a form of extremism, when it’s patently obvious that it’s scarcely extreme enough. How does one counter the kind of idiocy represented by the religions without going postal? And yet the new atheism is confined to making arguments, and pointing out the madnesses and inconsistencies of religion. Who could possibly complain about that?
Well, John Gray, for one. Consider his review of Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind. To a large extent I think Gray is right on the money, but when he comes to the new atheism he writes:
A part of The Righteous Mind is a useful critique of the primitive type of rationalism that has lately been in vogue. Haidt is refreshingly dismissive of the “new atheism.” Considering why religious communes have lasted longer than secular ones, he writes: “The very ritual practices that the New Atheists dismiss as costly, inefficient, and irrational turn out to be a solution to one of the hardest problems humans face: cooperation without kinship. Irrational beliefs can sometimes help the group function more rationally.”
Here Gray simply lapses into uncritical emotional response, where elsewhere he seems to be critically awake. The ritual practices which contemporary science of religion call costly, hard to fake signs of commitment, Gray simply supinely accepts as a new atheist dismissal of something socially important, achieving cooperation without kinship. This, as Philip Kitcher points out in his wonderfully penetrating book The Ethical Project, is part of the ethical project, a wholly human creation, and not, in any sense, dependent on supernaturalist ideas.
Why does John Gray simply turn off his mind at this point? Because it’s easy and customary. The new atheists are the pariahs of the intellectual community. They are dismissed regularly as extremists, strident, arrogant and simplistic, almost always by people who have not read them. It’s an easy cop. In a way it’s as easy as dismissing the religion of the Vikings. It’s not a living reality for people — people like R. Joseph Hoffmann — to pull a name out of a hat — who thinks that what is taught in departments of religious studies is a necessary foundation for criticising religion. And at a certain level, he’s right. If you want to engage in a critical study of religion, you have to do what departments of religious studies do. But that’s not what the new atheism is about. It’s about present reality, and the idiocies that are promulgated, daily, hourly, in the name of religion, and the offences that are done to good sense and humanity in the name of religion — the killing of women who sang at a wedding, the trial for murder of a woman who in despair attempted suicide, the charge of blasphemy against a man who showed a bleeding statue was a religious scam, and, of course, the ever-present Fred Phelpses of the world, the idiots who think they are doing their god’s will by being as obnoxious and intrusive as they can.
Should these things be entered in religion’s debit column? Yes, of course, because they’re repeated again and again without surcease, until the litany of idiocy seems to know no bounds at all. And yet people like John Gray can call the new atheists’ reasoning primitive, because they see this kind of idiocy as the inevitable spin-off from religion. Well, I think it’s high time we told religion to shove it. It’s continuously trying to determine how we live our lives — like the stupid pope and his church criticising a nun for thinking that sex is a perfectly normal and natural thing, and should be recognised as such, without all the doom of mortal sin hanging over every erotic feeling. Or like the churches’ constantly running interference on people’s desire to have the right to assistance in dying when life has become a burden too great to bear, and where further suffering is only further suffering, and nothing more, after all. It’s time for the religious just to shove it. Sure, they should have the freedom to believe whatever nonsense they want to, but they shouldn’t get to tell other people how to live their lives. They have no more insight into the moral life than the parade of religious idiocy marshaled by Ophelia Benson, day by day, and hour by hour. Let’s hear no more of religion’s value. It’s a blight on the human landscape. Let’s consign it to history, and get on with life.
The more intellectual, critical religious individuals have a hard time seeing that the New Atheists are doing what they should themselves be doing: Calling out the bad behavior of the religious. If the “Gnus” are attacking a strawman of religion, it’s the same strawman that millions (possibly billions) of people live every day. There aren’t that many people living in “Pennsyltucky” (the vast stretch of Pennsylvania between Philly and Pittsburgh [besides Penn State, where I went] that is just as rural and backwards as Kentucky, even if it is a “northern” state), for instance, who have had the benefit of the same religious education that sophisticated theologians have had.
They really do believe that the world is only 6,000 – 10,000 years old and that evolution is a lie created by liberals; they really do believe that Adam and Eve were literally the first human beings; they really do believe that Jesus walked on water, fed thousands with fish, and withered an unripe fig tree with his words. And trying to tell them that Bethphage in Aramaic means “house of unripe figs” simply doesn’t register with them.
The actual strawman, created by the sophisticated theologians, is that the majority of religious people don’t believe the supposed strawman created by the Gnus.
Oh John Gray! Funny bloke. Good brains, but a faitheist at heart. And recently there’s been Julian Baggini, enamoured of the mystic spell, trying to find a place for faith in the hearts of the herd of gnus. Bollocks to them all, say I. If human beings wish to relate to each other in integrity and truthfulness, they cannot do it if they must see their neighbours through the dark glass of preconception. Only honesty will do, and honesty means truthfulness, and truthfulness means putting aside all preconceptions and learning, with however much difficulty, how to listen, how to see, what is really being said, what is really before one’s eyes. The eye of faith is deliberate, wilful blindness. The faithful already know all the answers, and their answers are preprogrammed responses. These are the responses with which they pretend to be comforted in dark times. One may as well talk to sheep.
What drivel. I routinely cooperate with people I have no kinship with at all. I obey traffic laws, wait in line at stores, give money to institutions that work towards the betterment of people I will never personally meet, and preform many other cooperative actions with complete strangers on a regular basis. If there are “religious ritual” and “irrational” components to these things, I am unaware of them.
I have been collecting the follies of religious believers here for a couple of years:
http://religiousatrocities.wordpress.com/
and here:
http://atheistwiki.wikispaces.com/Outrage+scoreboard
before that. It’s a nasty, repellent mixture of the moronic, the delusional and the vicious and bloodthirsty. But I do get a few good jokes out of it now and then.
“The very ritual practices that the New Atheists dismiss as costly, inefficient, and irrational turn out to be a solution to one of the hardest problems humans face: cooperation without kinship. Irrational beliefs can sometimes help the group function more rationally.”
Has Gray never worked in the corporate world? He should try it — especially in engineering. There’s no shortage of coopereration there.
Apparently, Gray also has never heard of the Kiwanis or the Rotary club or the Jaycees, or any of the other non-religious service organizations that are literally everywhere in both small-town America and in the major metropolitan areas.
Aside from the Masons (and Knights of Columbus), there are no irrational silly rituals.
I looked up that “The Righteous Mind” reference.
Haidt:
“Communes are usually founded by a group of committed believers who reject rhe moral matrix of the broader society and want to organize themselves along different principles. … Sosis found that … just 6 percent of the secular communes were still functioning twenty years after their founding, compared to 39 percent of the religious communes.”
Thee difference? Sacrificing things like alcohol, tobacco, fashion, ties to outsiders, etc. — but only for the religious communes. For secular communes these sacrifices made no difference.
Haidt continues:
“Why doesn’t sacrifice strengthen secular communes? Sosis argues that rituals, laws, and other contraints work best when they are sacralized. He quotes the antropologist Roy Rappaport: ‘To invest social conventions with sanctity is to hide their arbitrariness in a cloak of seeming necessity.’ But when secular organizations demand sacrifice, every member has a right to ask for a cost-benefit analysis, and many refuse to do things that don’t make logical sense.”
Plato reaches similar conclusions in The Republic. But there are two ways of looking at this. Haidt prefers to see long-term cohesion as a good. But this assumes the commune is operating for the good. But what if it’s not? What if the secular members are better able to see flaws? What if the 6% survival rate shows that secular reason is better at weeding out the bad or irrelevant while religion is not as good at this weeding effect? What Haidt sees as a plus is just as likely a minus.
Kevin,
We could also mention unions and academic organizations. It might also be interesting to think about die-hard Red Socks fans. But maybe that borders on ritual.
The view of mine The Righteous Mind changed, one that I think many New Atheists share, is that the evidence will set you free. If only believers would look clearly at the evidence they would reason to the same position. Haidt argues that for humans most of the time reasoning comes after, in order to back up intuition.
One result of this is it has strengthened my conviction the utility of philosophy, having been unsure whether which side to agree with in the recent discussions on Eric’s blog.
Another is that I understand why atheism in it’s current form, which I understand to be more or less existentialism, will never be satisfactory to some people. I doesn’t make me agree with believers to any greater degree, or apologise for them, their actions or beliefs (Haidt’s work is descriptive not normative), but it helps me understand them better. And understanding is a moral obligation in my humble opinion.
Thirdly, it explains why liberalism is correlated with rejection of religion, and again highlights why atheism, as is, may never be a suitable substitute for those of a more conservative persuasion. I used to believe that if only conservatives would see the light they would become liberal as well as become atheist. Although I still hope for that, Haidt’s book as helped me see why that is naive.
Combined with the recent findings of the mental health benefits of e.g. meditation and community, such as one finds in a church, I think there’s a good argument developing, one that (hopefully) isn’t empty rhetoric or weaselly accommodationism, that for atheism to be more relevant to more people it needs to emphasize a secular spirituality, or as Eric put it, a new synthesis. One that would provide the practical or emotional content that has been the purvey of religion in the past, but shorn of the unprovable claims about the nature of the universe, for those who need them. There’s no requirement to be part of it for atheists who don’t require such services or prefer to find them on their own.
Hank Fox describes the truth of religion very well in his latest post. http://freethoughtblogs.com/bluecollaratheist/2012/06/03/lifeboat-of-knowledge-vs-dinghy-of-power/
We will not make progress against religion until we all understand that it is not about God,
it is about the power of the Pope (and his myriad minions and successors).
I think we ought to be sceptical about cooperation as some magical golden formula for ethics. People can cooperate for evil as well as good, and may cooperate because they’re submitting to some external authority.
Haidt’s book is one among many useful and insightful works, but I still do not believe that there is any single theory that solves the human condition.
The proposition, “It really is time to tell the whole religious crew to shove it!” gets my vote. In fact, I’d like to see the sentence on a t-shirt.
I’m not usually very fond of John Gray, but I think he is in the main right about Haidt’s very parochial little book – yes, it has some insights, but it is, as Gray says, very parochially American and no more so in its assumption of a rigid dichotomy between so-called ‘liberals’ and so-called ‘conservatives’. Another thing I disliked about the book was the vapid, feel-good style it was written in – something that seems to have become de rigueur for books about difficult issues written with a popular audience in mind.
Well, I think it’s high time we told religion to shove it. It’s continuously trying to determine how we live our lives … Let’s hear no more of religion’s value. It’s a blight on the human landscape. Let’s consign it to history, and get on with life.
Amen to that.
Although to be fair, or maybe wise in not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, one might argue that religion is, as the biologist David Sloan Wilson put it, “one of the most important and enigmatic aspects of the human condition”, even if it may not have all that many redeeming features – a lot of “chaff” surrounding, maybe, a very small amount of “wheat”.
And while there are probably more than a few features that might qualify as that wheat, it seems to me that the central one is somehow related to the questions that Richard Holloway is asking, as described here (at Choice in Dying) fairly recently, on a BBC radio program: “Where do we come from? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” And while I am a very long way from suggesting that religion has the inside track in answering those questions, I am not at all sure that it doesn’t have a few useful insights or perspectives.
Although I figure it would help greatly if the religious would “cease and desist” in their arrogant and egregious claims that they derive from “personal communications” with the grand-high poobah of the universe, “Gawd” himself. Though I suppose in that case it would no longer be considered “religion” which someone called “emotionalized philosophy” …
@Steersman: ‘the questions that Richard Holloway is asking, as described here (at Choice in Dying) fairly recently, on a BBC radio program: “Where do we come from? What Are We? Where Are We Going?”’
I come from Charlton, London, I’m a human being, and I’m going to the lounge room for dinner in a few moments. You are Lobby Lud and I claim my five pounds!
But let me respectfully suggest that if you (or Richard Holloway) want meaningful answers, you should try and contrive a way to ask meaningful questions. It’s cheating to spout solemn nonsense, then complain when you don’t get meaningful replies.
Corio37 (#15),
You are Lobby Lud …
?? Pray tell, what does that mean?
It’s cheating to spout solemn nonsense, then complain when you don’t get meaningful replies.
Apart from the fact that I wasn’t doing any complaining – not that I noticed anyway, my comment was merely an attempt to broach that very large and problematic subject on which a great amount of ink, and probably equal amounts of blood, has been spilt over some 2500 years of largely inconclusive “philosophizing” of one sort or another.
But relative to that, since you seem somewhat peeved that I wasn’t more explicit and since it was part of what I had in mind when I made those comments, you might consider this statement from Eric [apparently as I’m unable to find the post] which seems to narrow the problem down somewhat:
However, the crux of the matter seems to be that atheism & secular humanism – for want of a better catch-all – are in a similar boat in advancing their own vision of Utopia – apparently a “perfecting” of the still somewhat problematic “the greatest good for the greatest number” and of the equally problematic expectation that science is going to answer all questions including those pertaining to morality and purpose, all of which might be equally “unattainable” – which hardly seems to engage the enthusiasms to the extent that religion does.
While it is manifestly obvious that religion has gotten a great amount badly wrong, it seems equally obvious that it has gotten a few things decidedly right, or at least, arguably, more right than secular humanism has managed so far. And, as suggested by D.S. Wilson in a number of ways and places, those questions of Holloway’s might be a reasonable starting point in answering the broader questions as to precisely what that might be.
What vision of Utopia is that, Steersman, and who said anything about the greatest good for the greatest number? Where do you get this idea from? Who said that science will answer all questions? Science is a tool of discovery, and it works very well, but nobody can say that it will answer every question. There is no Utopia, only the possibility of rationality, and the belief that reason is the best way to deal with whatever problems we face. Only religious people believe in a Utopia; rational people accept that the world is probably a mess, and reason is our best way of dealing with it.
@Steersman: “it seems equally obvious that it has gotten a few things decidedly right,”
Like what? Can you name even one generally-agreed-upon fact or item of information arising from the practice of religion — particularly one which could not in principle have been derived from science? If you have been following earlier discussions you will know that Eric and I disagree on this matter, so although I have immense respect for him, citing his claims in this area is not going to budge me one bit. Really, it’s time for theists (and accommodationists) to stop making these vague claims and put up or shut up. What, exactly, has religion ‘gotten right’?
As for Lobby Lud, Google is your friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobby_Lud
@Steersman: “…those questions of Holloway’s might be a reasonable starting point in answering the broader questions as to precisely what that might be.”
But I answered those questions perfectly well. If somebody asks ‘Where are we from?’ the implication is that they mean either ‘Where were we born?’ or ‘Where were we just now?”
But let’s assume that Holloway knows where he was born and where he was just before writing the sentence, so presumably he means something else. Ok, WHAT? If Holloway or you can come up with a sensible question that actually expresses what he intends to ask, then I’m willing to bet that I can provide a sensible answer. But to ask a simple question, and then reject the simple and obvious answer, is just a cheap and easy way of manufacturing deepity.
“Where was Thursday? How many is Manchester? Why is a mouse when it spins?”
Have I blown your mind yet?
Gordon Willis (#17),
Seems to be a subject that engages your interest …
What vision of Utopia is that, Steersman, and who said anything about the greatest good for the greatest number? Where do you get this idea from?
A great many people including Wikipedia which seems to be of the opinion that that phrase is more or less synonymous with the philosophy of utilitarianism, “a type of naturalism” which tends to make it at least “kissing-cousins” to both atheism and secular humanism – and which certainly seems to be the furthest thing from a religious perspective and which seems to be a heresy to be anathematized by it, at least as far as the Pope is concerned.
Who said that science will answer all questions? Science is a tool of discovery, and it works very well, but nobody can say that it will answer every question.
Quite likely quite true. But that then still leaves some unanswered questions which tends to be somewhat problematic – in the absence of answers, the “system” tends to select its own which may be somewhat less than optimal as far as society and the individuals in it are concerned: refusing to make a choice, frequently in spite of or because of not having a definitive answer, is still a choice and probably not a very wise one.
As for those who think that science can answer significant questions of at least a moral nature, I note that both Eric and the philosopher / scientist Massimo Pigliucci, among others, have taken Sam Harris to task for the argument that science can really decide questions of value. Which, if I’m not mistaken, is likely what Richard Holloway is getting at.
Only religious people believe in a Utopia; rational people accept that the world is probably a mess, and reason is our best way of dealing with it.
Considering that “the first recorded utopian proposal is Plato’s Republic” and that the Wikipedia article describes at least half-dozen technological, economic and feminist “utopias” I would say that that is not a particularly well-supported argument.
State communism is one example of utopian thinking. And another I can think of is that dreamt up by B.F. Skinner, in his Walden Two . Utopian thinking is not confined to religion. John Gray’s The Immortalization Commission or his Black Mass are good reads about the religious and non-religious utopian projects.
Corio37 (#18),
Can you name even one generally-agreed-upon fact or item of information arising from the practice of religion — particularly one which could not in principle have been derived from science?
So you think that only science can provide any “useful fact or item of information”? But, apart from the fact that that suggests more than a little sympathy for scientism and a complete rejection, if not total ignorance of, the humanities, to answer your question I would point you to Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion wherein he says (pg 383):
The King James Bible of 1611 – the Authorized Version – includes passages of outstanding literary merit in its own right, for example the Song of Songs, and the sublime Ecclesiastes (which I’m told is pretty good in the original Hebrew too). But the main reason the English Bible needs to be part of our education is that it is a major source book for literary culture. This applies to the legends of the Greek and Roman gods, and we learn about them without being asked to believe in them.
He then proceeds to list some two pages of “biblical, or Bible-inspired, phrases and sentences that occur commonly in literary or conversational English, from great poetry to hackneyed cliché, from proverb to gossip”. And he concludes by asserting:
Every one of these idioms, phrases or clichés comes directly from the King James Authorized Version of the Bible. Surely ignorance of the Bible is bound to impoverish one’s appreciation of English literature?
Looks to me like not just one “fact or item of information”, but a whole raft of them, all “arising from the practice of religion”. And, as Dawkins suggested, that is only one religion with, probably, an equal number of clichés and proverbs and metaphors and parables arising from the “practice” of Greek and Roman religions. Maybe you could explain to me how those “psychological truths”, those archetypes, those quite useful parables and metaphors, could have “in principle been derived from science”.
Really, it’s time for theists (and accommodationists) to stop making these vague claims and put up or shut up. What, exactly, has religion ‘gotten right’?
Apart from the fact I haven’t ever self-identified as a theist – although I’ll admit to some sympathy for panentheism, particularly since both Spinoza and Einstein had similar leanings – and that I’m certainly no “accommodationist” – just someone in the camp of those who think it unwise to throw the baby out with the bathwater, a camp that seems to include Dawkins, at least based on the foregoing – I would say that Dawkins’ list is one fairly clear example of what religion – at least one religion – has ‘gotten right’.
As for others, as mentioned, the article by David Sloan Wilson describes a few and even Eric has apparently genuflected in that direction with his “[religious] experiences which … are transformative and compelling” and his “there are good evolutionary and psychological/neurological explanations for the powerful binding effect of religious stories”. However, my point wasn’t to enumerate or define all of those “facts or items of information” – if that is even possible – but only to suggest that more than a few of them exist and that they bear some consideration or development – essentially Holloway’s project by the look of it.
Although there’s a curious aspect of these discussions: it seems to me that many on both sides of the argument or conflict are in an “all-or-nothing” position – religion as all bad or all good; “four legs good; two legs bad” – where what seems required is, as the Bible puts it, to separate the wheat from the chaff – some of which is decidedly poisonous.
Corio37 (#19),
But I answered those questions perfectly well. If somebody asks ‘Where are we from?’ the implication is that they mean either ‘Where were we born?’ or ‘Where were we just now?”
That looks to me like you’re being rather disingenuous if not actually a little obtuse.
Of course the questions have absolutely nothing to do with where you personally are from – where you were born – or where you were going to have lunch. If you had bothered to follow the link provided to the BBC program and read or listened to any of the details you would have realized that the questions have everything to do with where we are going as a species and as a culture. For a little further elaboration, at least of the question of “where do we come from”, you might try reading, for example, Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man.
But absent some workable answers to those questions, I would say that it is quite likely that we’ll arrive at a dead end – and sooner rather than later.
@Steersman: “So you think that only science can provide any “useful fact or item of information”?
Well, you certainly haven’t provided any from any other source. Yes, the Bible is full of colourful words and phrases. But none of them convey any information that couldn’t have been obtained from science, and much of the information they do convey is demonstrably wrong. So once again, to use your own words: what has religion gotten right — i.e. factually correct — that science has not?
@Steersman: “Of course the questions have absolutely nothing to do with where you personally are from – where you were born – or where you were going to have lunch. If you had bothered to follow the link provided to the BBC program and read or listened to any of the details you would have realized that the questions have everything to do with where we are going as a species and as a culture.”
Then why dress them up as folksy enquiries about your hometown? Is it because asking “Where are we going as a species?” is too obviously a nonsensical question? (Unless the answer is: “We’re staying right here on Earth”, which I don’t suppose is what he thinks he’s getting at.) Can you explain what such an enquiry might possibly mean, and what kind of response would answer it? “Where are we going as a culture?” Well, I’m not a culture and I’m not going anywhere, as far as I know.
Once again, if you can express in plain language just what you think Holloway actually wants to know, I’m confident that I can come up with a sensible reply. But as it stands this is still just quasi-profound wiffle.
Corio37 (#24),
Well, you certainly haven’t provided any from any other source. Yes, the Bible is full of colourful words and phrases. But none of them convey any information that couldn’t have been obtained from science, and much of the information they do convey is demonstrably wrong.
What horse feathers. You said, and I quote, “name even one generally-agreed-upon fact or item of information arising from the practice of religion”; I’ve given you a whole raft of them.
And, please, do tell, or show, me how any one of those could be “obtained from science”. Say, using just Euclid’s axioms and theorems. Or maybe, not to make it too hard for you, including the Periodic Table and Newtonian physics.
And that some or even much of it is “demonstrably wrong” is still some distance from proving that all of it is. Which was, more or less, my point about the wheat and the chaff. Not to mention my original post.
Then why dress them up as folksy enquiries about your hometown?
That is your own largely idiosyncratic interpretation; what makes you think that everyone should cater to it? Particularly since the BBC themselves – who probably have a better handle on “the King’s English” than you do – thought it, apparently, clear enough. And the context of the Prologue to the series where those questions were asked further makes it clear – partly through reference to a famous painting by Gauguin which asked the same ones – that they pertained to anything but physical places of birth and locations for supper.
Can you explain what such an enquiry might possibly mean, and what kind of response would answer it? “Where are we going as a culture?” Well, I’m not a culture and I’m not going anywhere, as far as I know.
You could, as I’ve suggested several times, actually take a look at the indicated links for elaboration. And while it is true you’re “not a culture”, you are, along with the rest of us, part of one. And the values and principles promoted, advanced and inculcated by it affect your and our present and future; seems like it might be wise to consider what the possible consequences of various choices might be.
Something, I might add, that you already, presumably, subscribe to or you wouldn’t, apparently, be so concerned about the consequences of religious fundamentalism.
This is going nowhere. Let’s keep it brief:
a) Where are the FACTS?
b) What does “Where are we going as a species (or culture)?” actually MEAN?
If I ask “where are rabbits going as a species?” the only sensible answer is ‘well, that one’s going over there, and that one’s going over there…’ Does Holloway expect that sort of answer? If not, what on earth does he expect? Don’t tell me to watch the video, unless you’re prepared to admit that you don’t know either. I’m asking YOU.
Corio37 (#26)
a) Where are the FACTS?
Which FACTS did you have in mind?
b) What does “Where are we going as a species (or culture)?” actually MEAN?
As indicated in my last post which you apparently didn’t read or understand, I would say that “the values and principles promoted, advanced and inculcated by [the species or culture]” is a reasonable description or synopsis of – or equivalent or analogous to – “where we are going as a species or a culture”: the goals one has does tend to influence where one goes.
If I ask “where are rabbits going as a species?” the only sensible answer is ‘well, that one’s going over there, and that one’s going over there…’
I suppose that might be a “sensible answer” – if one insisted on a literal interpretation of the phrase; not quite so much if, as I’m quite sure Holloway expects, one has a more figurative interpretation in mind.
Does Holloway expect that sort of answer? If not, what on earth does he expect? Don’t tell me to watch the video, unless you’re prepared to admit that you don’t know either. I’m asking YOU.
And I think I’ve told you – in several different ways.
Let’s try again: a) what are the facts derived from religion that couldn’t have been derived from science? The facts you claim that religion is ‘right’ about, and science isn’t? ‘Right’ as in correct, in accordance with what obtains in the real world?
and b) if Holloway has a ‘figurative interpretation’ in mind, then what is it? What does it mean to say the human species is ‘going’ anywhere, and why does he think we’re all ‘going’ to the same place?
It’s a standard apologist tactic, of course, to ask a simple question and then proceed to ‘explain’ in a patronising way that ‘of course’ the simple and obvious answer is not what you are after, and imply that only those using their secret decoder rings can solve the riddle and come up with the ‘real’ truth. But I’m sure you (or Holloway) wouldn’t be attempting to get away with anything like that.
“As indicated in my last post which you apparently didn’t read or understand, I would say that “the values and principles promoted, advanced and inculcated by [the species or culture]” is a reasonable description or synopsis of – or equivalent or analogous to – “where we are going as a species or a culture”: the goals one has does tend to influence where one goes.”
This isn’t even a question. How can it be a translation of ‘Where are we going as a species’?
Corio37 (#28),
a) what are the facts derived from religion that couldn’t have been derived from science?
You still seem to be focused on science and think that only its facts have any relevance or value. I referred to all of the parables and proverbs and metaphors of religion and of mythology and I’m not about to enter a discussion on the merits of any particular one – that seems part of the scope of Holloway’s project – but it seems there is quite a bit to justify ascribing significant value to them. For example, you might try taking a look at the Wikipedia articles on mythology and archetypes for starters, the former having this somewhat salient point:
[Myths] are transmitted to convey religious or idealized experience, to establish behavioral models, and to teach …
Any idea how you might get from quantum mechanics, for example, to “idealized experience” or to establish “behavioral models”?
What does it mean to say the human species is ‘going’ anywhere, and why does he think we’re all ‘going’ to the same place?
I’ve already explained that which you don’t seem to get – either you’re being argumentative or obtuse; you might try re-reading my comments on the question a little more closely and taking a look at the definition for “figurative”.
… imply that only those using their secret decoder rings can solve the riddle
Quite a bit of difference between religion in which Jehovah, or another of his ilk, is the supposed key and various branches of the sciences and the humanities where the key is at least in the natural realm – even if it takes some effort and study to find it.
Corio37 (#29),
This isn’t even a question. How can it be a translation of ‘Where are we going as a species’?
Did I say it was a translation? I said it was analogous, among several other characterizations. But since you seem to have some difficulty in reading between the lines, in spite of a clear example, one might say, to maybe sharpen the point a little, that the question of “Where are we going as a species” has virtually or largely the same answer as the question “What values and principles shall we promote, advance and inculcate”.
Steersman, Corio37,
If I may contribute, I see what you are both getting at and I think there must be some way of reconciliation. I agree the questions “Where do we come from? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” have no content, they have no scientific value (other than the obvious evolutionary connotations), they are vapid. But the fact that humans throughout history have asked and sought answers to these questions means we’re particularly prone to asking vapid navel-gazing questions. Science can, and is, learning what it is about our psychology that makes us do this. But individually those scientific answers won’t help people, at least not all of them, come to terms with the subjective emotions those questions inspire.
They are the existential questions that religion and philosophy have talked about for centuries. Some people ‘answer’ them with art, literature, physical activity or community, the things that make people feel better about being alive and in their own skin. Science can still answer why these things make people feel better, but the best of religion (it’s wheat) combines these things into something greater than the sum of it’s parts and provides the feeling of emotional satisfaction that results in believers consistently reporting higher levels of happiness .
This stance isn’t accomodationist, the chaff of religion, the unprovable beliefs and dogmatism, especially that of life after death, the rituals that have no health benefits or are harmful, the in-group mentality, etc should still be attacked.
Until recently, and Haidt’s book was a big influence on changing my outlook, I certainly matched Steersman description in holding a utopian dream of humanity being set free by the truth of the evidence, all becoming liberal atheists who had no interest in feeling the delusions of respect for authority, sanctity and loyalty. In part this would make use of Sam Harris’ moral landscape to derive values from evidence. Whilst I still broadly agree that society should be governed using that landscape, it can’t necessarily be responsible for individual moral values, it doesn’t have the emotional pull and human intuitions will lead others elsewhere. In that case we need something that fulfills the needs of those intuitions that religion has done and allowed to become so synonymous with those needs that it’s a struggle to see them as separate. That alternative will still be based on the findings of science, but it won’t be found in science. At least it won’t for everyone, the consolations of science, our improvement in knowledge and technology (particularly medical) often inspires the emotions in me that could be called spiritual. But I no longer expect that to be the case for everyone.
Let’s go back to basics:
@Steersman: “While it is manifestly obvious that religion has gotten a great amount badly wrong, it seems equally obvious that it has gotten a few things decidedly right, or at least, arguably, more right than secular humanism has managed so far.”
You can’t ‘get things right’ without an objective standard against which to test them. So once again, by what objective standard has religion ‘got things right’, and what are they? Myths and poetry may be a good way of inculcating behavioural standards, but — since there are thousands of different myths from hundreds of different religions — which are the RIGHT ones? Which myths inculcate the ‘right’ behaviours? And how do you know? The issue is not whether religion inspires poetry and myth, but whether that poetry and myth has any more bearing on reality than secular science.
@Steersman: “the question of “Where are we going as a species” has virtually or largely the same answer as the question “What values and principles shall we promote, advance and inculcate”
But this is a trick question, like the original, for the same reason that “Have you stopped beating your wife?” is a trick question. It contains within it the assumption that there are ‘values and principles’ which ‘we’ — presumably meaning the entire human race — should ‘promote, advance and inculcate’. If Holloway had begun by asking, say “Is there a single goal that everybody in the entire human race should be striving for?” it would have become clear immediately that many people don’t think so, and that among those who DO think so there is no agreement on what it is. And that line of questioning would have ended there. But by pretending that issue — and others — have already been dealt with, Holloway can pose as a thinker of great profundity instead of what he is — a beggar of questions.
Matthew, I agree that people like to be asked — and to provide answers for — questions that sound deep and meaningful but are actually complete nonsense. I just don’t think we should encourage the habit.
corio37, I wasn’t intending we encourage the love of deepity, rather that we re-route that desire (or delusion) rather than feel we need to cure it. Re-route it into something emotionally fulfilling but at best useful to society, at least harmless. I don’t have a proposal of how to do that, it sounds dangerously like blue sky ‘let’s teach the world to sing’ thinking. Unlike Sam Harris talk on death I think we need more information; science is necessary to advise us here.
We need something like constructive criticism of the religious as well as the strain we currently have. Some people react well to the new atheist style, others don’t; people are different and to engage them we need different strategies to match. Otherwise people bury their heads in the sands and entrench deeper into their beliefs.
Hi Matthew,
I view the pursuit of deepity as actively dangerous, and of course that applies not only to religion and other mystic woo, but to political ideologies and hives of groupthink like Freudianism and radical environmentalism. Once you convince yourself there is one correct answer, then you tend to stop asking rational questions, and start imposing your views by fiat, and people suffer as a result. The sole humanitarian value of properly-done science lies in its pragmatism: it does things that work, and when they stop working, it stops doing them.
The answer to “Where are we going?” — as a species or a culture or anything else — should always be: “You go where YOU want, and I’ll go where I want, and we’ll try to let everyone else go where THEY want.” If the destinations happen to coincide, that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too.
I’m not sure what the ‘new atheist style’ is, or what ‘reacting well’ to it might involve, but this thread has probably exceeded its useful length already. Perhaps we can discuss it elsewhere later.
Matthew Dickinson (#32),
I agree the questions “Where do we come from? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” have no content, they have no scientific value (other than the obvious evolutionary connotations), they are vapid.
I certainly wouldn’t call them “vapid” – somewhat akin to an “eye of the beholder” type situation, I think. But, as you subsequently suggested – “existential questions that religion and philosophy have talked about for centuries”, they seem more like the starter for the proverbial “stone soup” – what each of us contributes to the communal pot is what determines how nourishing it is for all.
… but the best of religion (its wheat) combines these things into something greater than the sum of its parts and provides the feeling of emotional satisfaction that results in believers consistently reporting higher levels of happiness …
Agreed. But interesting paper there, a salient point being this:
Certainly nothing wrong with “social networks” and the feelings of friendship and support which such groups promote and engender – even some of that manifested in various atheist organizations and events. And there’s probably quite a bit right with the concept in general: many hands make light work. The problem is, of course, when the tail starts to wag the dog, when feelings become more important than any of the principles or facts on which the group is based.
I certainly matched Steersman’s description in holding a utopian dream of humanity being set free by the truth of the evidence, all becoming liberal atheists who had no interest in feeling the delusions of respect for authority, sanctity and loyalty.
Nothing inherently or intrinsically wrong with the idea of utopian dreams of one sort or another – at least that I can see; it probably motivated, among other social movements, the French, American and Russian Revolutions.
In part this would make use of Sam Harris’ moral landscape to derive values from evidence.
Seems that is a somewhat shaky foundation considering the number of people – including Eric, Massimo Pigliucci, and Russell Blackford – who have been decidedly critical of Harris’ arguments.
In that case we need something that fulfills the needs of those intuitions that religion has done and allowed to become so synonymous with those needs that it’s a struggle to see them as separate.
Definitely a bit of a problem; that’s why I think it’s important to understand the nature and mechanisms of the phenomenon – as D.S. Wilson argues, more or less.
At least it won’t for everyone, the consolations of science, our improvement in knowledge and technology (particularly medical) often inspires the emotions in me that could be called spiritual.
I know the feeling – something that seems to motivate or inspire a great many people including Einstein. Something that more or less does it for me is an aphorism from, I think, Francis Bacon: “I hold every man (and woman) to be a debtor to his (or her) profession”; I think it appropriate to extend that “profession” to “the civilization that, in effect, gave birth to and nurtured them”.
However, while feelings can be somewhat unreliable and decidedly problematic, it’s where we all live – any philosophy or “ism” that doesn’t take due cognizance of that fact is, I think, not likely to fare all that well in the marketplace of ideas that have any claim to motivating large segments of humanity.
Corio (#33),
You can’t ‘get things right’ without an objective standard against which to test them.
I suppose that might be true – if you want to shoe-horn everything into the mold provided by science – which tends to be condemned as scientism.
The issue is not whether religion inspires poetry and myth, but whether that poetry and myth has any more bearing on reality than secular science.
Where did say anything about myth having more bearing on reality than science? I only said that it had some. But I wonder – does that mean you’re going to throw several thousand years of art and literature and philosophy under the bus of scientism?
But this is a trick question, like the original … it contains within it the assumption that there are ‘values and principles’ which ‘we’ — presumably meaning the entire human race — should ‘promote, advance and inculcate’.
Not at all. For one thing, one might argue that that’s not an assumption but a hypothesis, the “truth” of which might be determined in the search for the answers to the question – a concept, I might add, that is quite central to the theory and practice of science. And for another, it seems humanity has generally done pretty well by that idea already, examples being America’s “We hold these truths to be self-evident …”, Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights.
… Holloway can pose as a thinker of great profundity instead of what he is — a beggar of questions …
Considering the man’s credentials that seems rather brave if not actually foolhardy …
Thanks to both of you, I’m in broad agreement with your comments, I’ve picked out a couple of points to clarify:
corio37 (#35), I would define the new atheist style is being confrontational, often but not always condemning and using things like humour to undermine respect in religion. Unlike many accomodationists I don’t have a problem with that, and not all of it is new, many of the great atheist writers of the past used similar methods. Some people react well to that style and leave their faith and dogmatism, others need a different tact.
Steersman (#36), I defend the moral landscape in as far as we need a greater use of evidence in public policy. I recommend Mark Henderson’s book ‘The Geek Manifesto’ for a more grounded approach (bare in mind it’s very UK centric). We still need people to interpret the evidence and weigh it against other considerations. I haven’t read Pigliucci and Blackford’s criticisms, Eric’s I agree with regarding the is/ought divide, but that doesn’t change the utility of the evidence based approach to public policy.
Thanks again, you’ve given me more to think about!
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Matthew Dickinson (#38),
Steersman (#36), I defend the moral landscape in as far as we need a greater use of evidence in public policy.
Certainly there seems to be much to defend in Sam Harris’ book – as both Russell Blackford and Massimo Pigliucci, at least, take some pains to note. And I’ll quite agree with your comment about the need for greater evidence, although one might argue that facts alone aren’t sufficient and that more comprehension is required to interpret them properly. On the last point you might be interested in this book review from Richard Lewontin – Jerry Coyne’s doctoral advisor, if memory serves – who asserted that:
But relative to the point of Harris’ book, here is something I think is quite cogent from Pigliucci’s review:
He then goes on to a brief discussion of the question of how we should – ought to – “ground moral reasoning”, but the previous quote highlights, I think, the problem with Harris’ arguments. And those seem to devolve from some conflict between the aims of the individual and those of the group – problems that seem to be manifested by virtually all “isms”. While there is obviously much to commend forming groups – “united we stand; divided we fall”, it frequently seems the case that the group cares as little about an individual in it as you or I do about, for examples, removing a wart or some other cosmetic surgery or even various dental procedures: the individual “cell” is sacrificed for “the greater good” – the problematic dimension, I think, of the type of utilitarianism that Harris, and others, seem to promote.
But, relative to the previously discussed question on “the values and principles that we, as a culture and a species, should promote, advance and inculcate”, I think Pigliucci provides a pretty clear example of that in his conclusion:
Thanks again, you’ve given me more to think about!
Likewise, I’m sure.
Steersman (#39)
Pigliucci is using a variation of the Brave New World argument. That is the presumption that if we had a species of people who had been genetically engineered to be happy no matter what work they were given and what conditions they were subjected to that would be fine under utilitarianism. The point of the moral landscape’s version of utilitarianism (the greatest well-being for the greatest number of people for the greatest amount to time) is that the means cannot justify the ends, the loss in well-being to those who lose fertility rights in the eugenics required in the present would outweigh the gains in the future.
If we created a drug that had the same results; they made everyone happy and fulfilled regardless of what they are doing without side-effects, then I don’t know whether that would be moral or not :S
Slavery would be ‘right’, or the best course of action, only if the slaves happiness was improved over their freedom. If it was, it would be harder to say it’s wrong. Of course it would have to be genuine happiness, not reporting under the eyes of the slave-master.
It’s the same for any exploitation, it may help those on one side of the arrangement, but the lack of well-being on the other side doesn’t disappear.
I shouldn’t have made the moral landscape reference in my previous post, because I agree it misses the interpretation problem and the ought/is problem. It doesn’t answer moral questions but helps answer policy ones. I find it’s a useful short-hand for evidence-based policy and the landscape concept, the idea for multiple ways of maximising well-being is an important one. However, perhaps the connotations with it’s problems means the phrase has too much baggage to be useful.
Hope that clarifies my position somewhat
Matthew Dickinson (#40),
Brave New World argument … the loss in well-being to those who lose fertility rights in the eugenics required in the present would outweigh the gains in the future.
I guess I’ll have to read the book, but that example seems a little problematic: the point is, I think, how do you assess the gains and losses? If 10,000 people gain 0.001 for a total gain of 10, but one person loses 1 – their life – then does that make it a “good” moral choice for society?
Slavery would be ‘right’, or the best course of action, only if the slave’s happiness was improved over their freedom.
Again, a few sticky wickets there I think. Consider the status of women in many repressive Muslim countries [most, if not all of them] and the many women therein who, apparently from a number of reports, are entirely “happy” with the status quo. While I certainly lean to discounting their views as being cases of brainwashing and would support laws to curtail the related and causative practices, it seems to me that your emphasis on “the slave’s happiness” would tend to preclude that course of action.
I find it’s a useful short-hand for evidence-based policy and the landscape concept …
Certainly an interesting concept and it may have some useful applications. But to me there still seems to be a few of those proverbial devils in the details – not least of which is that it is apparently trying to shoehorn the unquantifiable – feelings, happiness – into the mold provided by science. Maybe a case of that secular proverb to the effect that when the only tool you have is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail …
Steersman (#41),
I fully admit those examples you raise are problems that cannot be washed over. And I don’t have answers.
But to some extent government policy does and has to increase well-being for the majority at the expense of others, think of the misery of people sitting out life sentences to ensure the well-being of the populace.
Well-being is affected by many factors, the guilt and pain of seeing others suffer is one, so one could argue that the deficit of well-being in the general populace would prevent the suffering of that minority. That is what led to the end of slavery after all. When I promote evidence-based policy it’s not just sociological evidence but includes all relevant disciplines, psychology included.
As for quantifying well-being, well I think Harris’ argument that how do you define ‘health’ stands up pretty well.
I only defend the idea to an extent. I agree with your criticisms! As I said in a previous post, some days ago XD, the moral landscape was more a favourite of mine prior to Haidt’s book, which showed me the importance of interpretation and I would add Henderson’s book, which helped me see why other factors are important. As I’ve left behind some utopian naivety I’m less of an advocate than I used to be. At present I’m not sure of any alternative other than going by moral intuition, but I’m not well read on the subject.
Forgot to say, thanks for the links in post #39!